18. ~Sebastian~

I couldn't calm down.

Rage was a living, breathing thing inside of me.

It had been years since I'd felt anything like it, this level of fury.

I was sweating and shaking with it.

And I couldn't get it out of my head.

Him beating on her, touching her, fucking well forcing himself on her!

I hadn't been able to stop it, to do a goddamn thing. I'd decked two spectators who were supporting him and the sick show Damien had been putting on in my bid to get to her, but so many more had held me back. It had all been a haze around me as I'd fought to get to her, to get to him and rip him apart for daring to lay a hand on her, to subjecting her to that. I hadn't even realized that Caleb had been fighting off a whole other lot of them to defend me as I'd lost my shit all over the place.

And then Cas had shown up.

Neither of us had called him, there hadn't even been time. Not for him to get there fast enough.

So he must've had eyes somewhere in the crowd.

For all I knew, Luke might've actually been there himself. He was a hard guy to miss, but I'd only been focused on the immediate of Sky and my psycho brother. If he had been there, he wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway.

No, it had required a major shock factor.

That being Caspian King showing up out of the blue.

The crowds had literally parted for him.

And they'd gone absolutely crazy when he'd even engaged in the cage match and beat the living shit out of Damien.

But it hadn't been enough.

It was obvious to me and Cal that Cas had held back—majorly, actually.

For me.

The fact Damien wasn't in the ICU right now—or worse—was proof enough of that, considering what Cas was actually truly capable of.

He'd be making a trip to the ER, or more likely bringing in his on-call doctor to keep all that out of the press, but he'd recover easily with no permanent damage.

And a sick part of me had been disappointed that it hadn't been a whole lot worse, disappointed that Cas had actually stopped.

Seeing Damien hurt like that, the punishment he'd been dealt, it had barely even scratched the surface of the rage he'd ignited in me. The acts themselves had been bad enough, but he'd also set it up in such a way that I hadn't been able to stop it.

He'd made me feel powerless.

The last time I'd felt that had been when my dad had been taken from me. There'd been nothing I'd been able to do back then either, to change the outcome, to fix it. That, combined with the grief and anger of his death had messed me up because my solution had been to numb it all. Since then, I'd ensured everything I'd done, every move I'd made had been calculated, with the outcomes predicted and strategized before I'd gone a certain way with anything. Basically, I'd exerted an intense degree of control over every aspect of my life so I wouldn't be caught off guard again, so I couldn't feel that sense of powerlessness.

And now this had happened tonight.

The fucker had triggered me in far too many ways.

Because I'd opened myself back up.

He wanted me to know that he was aware of that fact, that he knew I was no longer shut down.

That I was vulnerable.

Targeting Sky had clearly been strategic, without a doubt.

Rationally, I knew this reaction I was experiencing now was exactly what he'd wanted.

Yet, I still couldn't just cast it off.

The look on her face, the way he'd ripped her power right out from under her, violated her, humiliated her… I felt sick that she'd had to suffer like that, that he'd put her through that.

And it was all because of me.

All because I'd pulled her into our world.

"Fuck," I muttered, as I pushed back into the foyer of King Manor. As my footsteps on the white marble floor echoed down the corridor, I took in the time on the ornate grandfather clock just a few feet from the double winding staircase. I'd been outside pacing and pacing like a caged animal for over twenty minutes.

When we'd first arrived here, I'd settled Sky onto one of the uber comfortable oversized black armchairs in the seating area and put on the TV. Over my time getting to know her, I'd found out that she was into 80's action movies in a big way—no surprise there, really.

But given the violence that had happened tonight, I'd opened up Caleb's profile on the PVR instead, which consisted of mostly sitcoms. Yeah, he had his own profile still here at King Manor. Good thing he did, because Caspian's was all boring-ass mysteries, every Sherlock Holmes production that had ever been made, then a whole lot of medieval history documentaries and anything to do with King Arthur and his knights. For his rare lighter moods when he actually wanted to chill, he had every TV show and movie ever made about the Three Musketeers. He liked the honor and brotherly loyalty in it. And the violence, of course.

I didn't have my own profile, I'd just watched whatever when I'd lived here. I'd gone the video game route instead and I also read a lot of epic fantasy, like Lord of the Rings and all that. It had been another way to sublimate during those dark days, another way to remove myself from reality.

While Cas had been on the phone to Luke dealing with the fallout of what had happened earlier at the fight venue, Caleb had sat with her while I'd gone to retrieve a first-aid kit to tend to her injuries—the bloodied scrapes and stark bruising that my fucking brother had inflicted on her!

But when I'd returned and found Cas sitting and just observing her from the couch and Caleb talking to her and exchanging discreet looks with Cas in the process, and then she'd looked out at me, I hadn't been able to take her in without that rage threatening to take me over. All I'd seen in that moment had been my brother. That twisted look on his face, him sucking that vile fucking finger that had been in her panties right in front of me, thinking he could take from her, from me… shit, I'd just dumped the kit on the coffee table, then told them I needed a few moments, and I'd bolted out of the mansion into the cool night air.

And even after that, that rage and upset still hadn't quelled.

It just wouldn't.

I couldn't get a handle on it.

And the last thing I wanted was to head back in there with them and still be in this state.

Cal had already been questioning my mental state, and it was a big fucking deal that Cas had had to tell me to stay my hand tonight. First time for everything. That was usually my thing, especially when we were out in the field as our other selves.

But, in spite of that and their reactions and the shit that could come at me from it, what concerned me the most was Sky. I didn't want her seeing this rage coming off me again. And I certainly didn't want to be blurting out something like what I had earlier, telling her she wasn't fine. Way to make her feel like a victim. I hated that I'd said that. I hated every move I'd made and every word I'd uttered since Damien had stepped into that ring. All of it was reminiscent of the old me, the addict, the out of control and just completely out of it version of me.

I gritted my teeth, then shoved my hand through my hair.

As all those thoughts had been swirling, I'd been walking through the mansion, just wandering aimlessly.

Or so I'd figured, until I found myself outside Caspian's home office.

The door was ajar.

Not like him at all.

When I'd headed into the kitchen to retrieve that first-aid kit, I'd also noticed that his liquor wasn't hidden like he usually made sure it was whenever I was slated to come over.

He'd had to react extremely fast, in a hell of a rush, to get to us.

Or, was it to get to her?

While there was no doubt in my mind that Caspian King would do everything and anything in his power to protect Caleb and me, there'd been a degree of separation there when it had come to the fact that it had been Sky in the immediate danger, not us. Sure, he knew I cared for her at this point and I was sure Cal had told him about his growing sentiment and fondness toward her as well, but she wasn't one of us. Not officially and definitely not from Caspian's perspective, in his mind.

And even then, him coming down there personally and so suddenly with no time to prep or strategize, or to put measures in place to minimize the fallout of the King of the City headed down to that notorious location in the furthest thing from covertly, was definitely outside his usual protocol.

He could've sent his guys.

Hell, he could've sent Luke. If that ghost-like figure hadn't already been there already.

So, as much as I didn't like to think that Cas would use his very skilled use of manipulation and calculation anywhere near Cal and me, the events of tonight did actually raise that possibility.

It had me wondering whether he'd actually used this fucked-up night as an opportunity in his bigger strategy, that he'd used it to play the savior to Sky, to frame himself that way, to gain her trust without having to go the long way around where that was concerned, and possibly even to make it so that she owed him a favor.

Fuck. I hoped I was just being paranoid, especially when it came to that last part, because owing Caspian King a favor absolutely was not a good position to be in.

I checked my surroundings, then ducked inside his office

My blood was roaring in my eyes as I found myself making a beeline for his desk.

His immaculate desk. He'd at least locked his laptop and papers away before he'd left then.

But there was one thing he never locked away. At least not in his desk. It was only locked via the door of the office itself.

Don't. Don't do it.

I rounded the desk and reached for the bottom drawer.

My hands were shaking, all the more violently than with the rage alone.

Now, there was even more than that.

The promise of relief.

Of numbness.

Escape from reality.

Escape from pain.

Things were different now.

Iwas different now.

It wouldn't be the big deal that others might view it as.

I could handle it this time.

It didn't really need to be all or nothing when it came to this. I'd just been unnecessarily strict about it.

I could control it.

I just needed it to calm down.

Just this once.

I hesitated.

Just to take the edge off. That's all it is. You need it, you can't go back in there in this state, and you know it.

I reached for the drawer and it was unlocked as usual, just like I'd anticipated.

And there were only three things inside.

A container of wintergreen Tic Tac mints and two flasks.

I snatched one of the silver flasks up, both engraved with JK, formerly belonging to Jameson King.

I screwed off the top and brought it to my nose, scenting the bourbon inside. Not my go-to for liquor back in the day. It had been top-shelf vodka all the way for me. But it would do the job I desperately needed it to do.

My hand was trembling as I brought it to my lips.

Fuck this.

I tipped it back.

I grimaced as the taste hit my tongue, like some foul-tasting medicine.

Unfortunately, that was pretty much what it was functioning as right now.

I pushed aside that thought and all the rest, the voice screaming just beneath the surface for me to spit it out, to purge it from my system before it fully hit.

I drank it down, gulp after gulp.

I'd only meant to take a little, especially so it wouldn't be noticeable that the flask was emptier than it should be, but the promise of that numbness, of taking all the shit away, in a way that I could no longer accomplish, ever since I'd opened myself up, consumed me. To accomplish that again, I'd have to shut down and that meant shutting her out, shutting out all the good I'd started to feel, how I had started to live again instead of just existing.

No. I wouldn't do it. I couldn't go back to that now.

I just needed a brief reprieve and I could get a handle on all these feelings, all this intensity and the bad that was now coming along with the good.

I gulped it down, forcing it down despite it burning my throat like a bitch.

Before I knew it, I'd consumed it all, right down to the last drop.

I fixed the lid back into place, then put the flask back in the exact position that I'd found it in. I snatched up the Tic Tac container, then shoved three into my mouth to hide the smell, and chomped down on them quickly.

Then I closed the drawer and snuck back out of the office.

I walked a good way down the corridor so it didn't look like I was lingering there.

Thankfully, security was currently disbursed dealing with some business issue Caspian had been intentionally vague about, and Luke was sorting the fallout of tonight. Normally, there'd be no way for me to sneak around King Manor, let alone get anywhere close to that office, not unless Cas had called me in there for a meeting of minds or something.

Once I found a good spot out of the way, I sank against the wall and waited for the alcohol to hit.

To calm me down at long last.

To soothe me.